The Taken Path
by PlainandBored
Summary: Zombie AU. One had watched it happen, the other woke up to it. Now they journey not to find a cure, or even survive, but to die.


_The world had gone to hell, but I wasn't going to let it take me down too. _

Hinata Hyuuga ran through the forest path, panting, hoping to outrun the evil that chased her. The battle had dragged on longer than she'd expected. _A jounin,_ she assumed,_ or what's left of one_. Now, she soldiered on like the ninja she was, but expecting, at any moment to get caught in the once-humans sights. Her chakra reserves were near empty and she knew that if she didn't get away then, she'd be little more than a bird stuck in a cage with death. _How ironic that that would be the case, _she whimsically wondered, though likely moribund.

A sudden root rose surreally and wrapped itself around her bare, bloodied ankle and the forest went strident with her feminine terror-filled scream as she kicked away her supposed attacker. _Shit! Just its jutsu. _She tugged at the uncontrived substance hard as she could manage, sliced at the chakra created coalescence with a kunai knife, but try as she might, she could only fail. _Energy to low,_ a voice in the back of her mind whispered, _dead. _She giggled a bit hysterically at that, _eaten alive first! _

She did not dare to make a sound, knowing through experience that what ensnared her so tightly was nothing but a trap laid by her undead hunter. _The ways of the flesh are not easily forgotten. _The creature had no soul, but was cursed with an inexplicable sustaining life force and a vexing gleam of malevolent intelligence.

Hinata heard the crazed rambling gait and the low guttural growls of the former jounin before she saw it. She'd of escaped it earlier, but it had stumbled upon her after perceiving the maelstrom she and another undead had wrought with their chakra. Now, she regretted not absconding from that former fight and saving her chakra for when she'd really needed it. But she'd been desperate and her thoughts muddled, an aftereffect of the twisted creature's mind jutsu. So Hinata reaped the whirlwind, that being the creature now madly dashing towards her fallen form. It was truly a morbid sight to behold. Its run was more of a rapid shuffle; a result of one leg twisted completely around at the knee. Fragments of tibia poked out the decayed flesh like worms ready to greet the rainfall. His - for Hinata assumed her killer was male – face was beyond recognizable as human. The left eye had, sometime during the creature's journey, melted down its face like a parodic, gooey waterfall. The bottom half of the jaw was rent from the monster's face, exposing yellowed teeth through the shocking gape of flesh and the gray pallor of the skin resembled that of a frozen, yet aware, corpse. It still wore the uniform of the village it had once served, identifying the _thing_ as a former ninja of the Hidden Leaf Village. Once upon a time, a comrade. She then wondered through her tired mental haze if she'd known him. _So far from our home._

Hinata had given up, lacking the requisite energy to even endeavor a half-hearted escape, all she could hope for was that the corpse granted her the best mercy anyone could possibly afford in these times, a quick death. But she knew that wouldn't happen. These monsters, creatures, experiments, or whatever the hell that feral creat- feral, Hinata found it an appropriate term for what hunted her, did not afford mercy. They hunted with what skills they reserved in their repertoire and closed in with their mangled hands for the kill. Ferals that were once ninja retained their chakra –and chakra refreshment- and what power capabilities they learned in life – but they couldn't heal, the dead are beyond resurrection. If their hands could form seals, they would, and only against something that still walked the land with a beating heart.

Even now, it was closing in. Moving wildly in that way only a Feral could. Two thundering steps and it was upon her. Before it stuck, she felt warmth. _The sun. _Sunlight hit her with a realization. _This is the last time I'll ever feel it._ And then it went in for the bite.


End file.
